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The Apple world has been alight recently with news of the Mac App store – similar to the iPhone and iPad App store but for “proper” computers.

In particular does this mean that Apple is planning on locking down Macs in the future – only Steve-approved software will run – no dirty hacks, no messing with the system. Instead, clean, shiny, easy to install, easy to update and easy to pay for software.

I’m sure that in Steve’s head such a world would be great. And maybe this is the first step down that path (but if it is then there will still be a place for “open” computers; in the same way that there is still a place for mainframes – just not for consumer-grade machines).

But in the shorter term, there’s one subtle change. Apple has been deprecating APIs – no more Apple-supported Java, no 64-bit Carbon – and on the App Store, apps will be rejected if they use a deprecated API.

So everyone moves to shiny Cocoa – Apple’s approved development system.

One advantage of Cocoa is that Apple (or rather NeXT) have maintained cross-platform compatibility for years. This is how Macs switched from PowerPC chips to Intel chips so seamlessly. This makes the next architecture transition even easier – anything in the App Store is effectively certified on whatever next-generation Mac comes along.